Federal Officials Organize to Address Unique


Health Needs of Pacific Islanders


By Houkje Ross


Closing the Gap, Pacific Islander Health • June/July 2000


Robert Underwood, Guam’s non-voting delegate in the U.S. 

House of Representatives, believes that the needs of Pacific 

Islanders are too often overlooked by public and private 

policymakers, program managers, educators, and researchers. 

Speaking May 9 before the Interagency Working Group (IWG) 

of the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI), Underwood said, “We could hold an entire oversight 

hearing on all the times Pacific Islanders have been overlooked.” 

Underwood cited Reaching the Top, the College Board’s 1999 report 

on higher education and minorities, as a case in point. “Pacific Islanders and Southeast Asians were not even included in the report,” he 

said. 

Federal officials and community representatives hope that the 

year-old White House Initiative will help direct attention and resources to the health, education, and social service needs of Pacific 

Islanders, as well as Native Hawaiians and Asian Americans. President 

Clinton issued Executive Order 13125 on June 7, 1999, creating the 

Initiative specifically to increase the participation of Asian Americans 

and Pacific Islanders in federal programs. 

“I am committed to ensuring that Pacific Islander and Native 

Hawaiian community groups in the continental U.S., Hawai‘i, and in 

the U.S.-associated Pacific Island jurisdictions are at the table as full 

partners in all of our Initiative activities,” said Shamina Singh, executive director of the White House Initiative. “There are numerous 

disparities faced by Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders that must be 

addressed.” 

The executive order also established the President’s Advisory 

Commission on AAPIs and the IWG, which comprises officials 

throughout the federal government, and is chaired by Department of 

Health and Human Services Deputy Secretary Kevin Thurm. 

Getting community feedback 

Commission members plan to hold town hall meetings in California, New York, the Midwest, and Hawaii. According to Charmaine 

Manansala, senior policy analyst for the White House Initiative, getting feedback from Pacific Islanders and those who work with the 

population is an effective way to evaluate the needs. 

At the May 2000 IWG meeting, Marie Ma‘o, director of human 

and social services for American Samoa, described some of the challenges she faces in her work. “Grant applications for programs like 

Women, Infants, and Children are 

often very complicated,” Ma‘o said. “If I have a question, I have 

to talk with a different person every time, which is time consuming.” 

Pacific Islanders who receive services through federal government programs also face language and cultural barriers. “Our family is 

the foundation of our culture. Services that you bring often don’t 

make sense to us unless they serve the entire family,” Ma‘o said. 

Ma‘o used the example of having to translate a brochure that 

gave parents advice on how to deal with child abuse issues. 

continued on page 2>>>> 

President’s Advisory Commission on AAPIs 

The Presidential Commission on AAPIs, consists of 15 representatives from the AAPI community 

who will advise the President on actions needed to improve the lives of AAPIs. 

Chair: The Honorable Norman Y. Mineta. Edgewater, MD. Nominee for U.S. Secretary of Commerce, and former member of U.S. 

House of Representatives. Vice President, Special Business Initiatives, Lockheed Martin. 

Ms. Haunani Apoliona. Honolulu, HI. Trustee of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs for the State of Hawaii. 

Ms. Gloria Caoile. Springfield, VA. Special Assistant to the President, 

American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, and Vice President of the National Asian Pacific American 

Labor Alliance. 

Ms. Martha Choe. Seattle, WA. Director, Department of Community,Trade and Economic Development, Washington state. 

Ms. Susan Soon-Keum Cox. Eugene, OR. Expertise in the fields of 

international adoption and child welfare. Vice President of Public Policy and External Affairs, Holt International Child Services. 

Mr. Vinod Dham. Freemont, CA. Chairman, President, CEO, Silicon Spice, Inc., a communications technology development firm. 

Dr. Wilfred P. Leon Guerrero. Asan, Guam. President 

and owner, WP Leon Guerrero & Associates consulting 

firm in Guam. 

Ms. Tessie Guillermo. San Francisco, CA. Executive Director of the 

Asian and Pacific Islander American Health Forum. 

Mr. Dennis Hayashi. Sacramento, CA. Director of the State of California Department of Fair Employment and Housing. 

Dr. David D. Ho. Chappaqua, NY. A distinguished AIDS researcher 

who serves as the Director and CEO of the Aareon Diamond 

AIDS Research Center. 

Ms. Ngoan Le. Chicago, IL. Deputy Commissioner of Human Services for Chicago. 

Mr. Jonathon R. Leong. Piedmont, CA. Businessman and President 

of JLA Companies. Founder of Asian Business Association. 

Mr. Mukesh Patel. Atlanta, Georgia. Leader in the hospitality industry. Founding member of the Asian American Hotel Owners 

Association. 

Ms. Jacinta Folasa Titialii. Philadelphia, PA. Vice President and Assistant General Counsel for Tenet Healthcare Corp. 

Mr. Lee Pao Xiong. St. Paul, MN. Director of Government and Community Relations for Concordia University. 

Office of Minority Health Resource Center 1 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 
Federal Officials Organize to Address Unique


Health Needs of Pacific Islanders


By Houkje Ross


Closing the Gap, Pacific Islander Health • June/July 2000


The brochure contained the phrase “Respect your child.” According to Ma‘o, “Many families ended up throwing out the brochure because in the Samoan culture, the word respect is reserved for 

elders and leaders. In our culture, it didn’t make sense for parents to be 

reading about respect for children. So we had to change the words to 

‘love your children;’ that is something parents could understand.” 

Surveying federal agencies 

In July, the IWG plans to complete a federal inventory of AAPI 

participation in major federal programs during 1999. Representatives from 32 federal agencies, including the Departments of Defense, Commerce, Energy, and Education, will report projects and 

initiatives designed specifically for AAPIs. They will also document 

current employment levels of AAPIs in the federal government. IWG 

members will then advise HHS Secretary Donna E. Shalala on the 

implementation and coordination of these federal programs. 

Barbara Chow, associate director of the Office of Management 

and Budget (OMB), underscored the importance of this analysis. 

“These numbers hold an enormous amount of power,” she said at the 

IWG meeting. “You can’t do anything without the numbers.” Chow 

noted that the Hispanic community felt underserved by Head Start 

programs for many years, but it wasn’t until documentation and data 

were compiled that the federal government set goals to increase Hispanic participation in the program. 

According to Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-HI), HHS is the only federal 

agency that has established a policy to implement OMB’s newly revised standards for classifying race and ethnicity in government statistics. He strongly encouraged other agencies to implement the directive. 

“Data collection and statistics for Pacific Islanders can best be 

described as dismal and inadequate,” said Sen. Akaka. He and others 

are concerned that the larger numbers of Asian Americans make it 

harder to understand what the data might show about Pacific Islanders, who face different circumstances and challenges than Asian Americans. To many, the recent change to OMB standards—making it 

mandatory for federal data collectors to separate out data on Native 

Hawaiians and other Pacific Islander groups from Asian American 

data—is a step in the right direction. 

For more information on the White House Initiative on AAPIs, 

visit: http://www.hrsa.gov/aapi; or call (301) 443-2492.

Office of Minority Health Resource Center 2 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services